I took the job at Google knowing I would be laid off, and I planned for it

Ryan sat down with Nikki Belt, who runs Anchor & Keel Consulting. After 20 years working with organizations ranging from nonprofits to Google, she now helps small business owners simplify their operations, work out where technology actually helps, and find practical answers to the everyday problems of running a business.

Leaving the corporate track

What was the moment you decided to leave that world and start working with small businesses?

I've always been entrepreneurial, and I always pictured myself owning a business. Then life happened. I started in corporate, one role led to another, and 20 years later I looked up and realized I still had that dream of running my own thing.

For a long time I really enjoyed corporate work. But the tone started to shift. It became less fulfilling and less stable than it had ever been, and the tug to build something of my own kept getting stronger.

My last corporate role was at Google, and I took it knowing I'd likely get laid off at some point, based on what I could see happening inside the organization. So I went in with a plan: when the layoff came, I'd head out on my own. About two years in, the layoff happened, giving me the opportunity to build my own business.

Working with small businesses is a passion of mine. They're the ones that keep jobs and money in our communities, and they rarely have access to the kind of operational expertise I'd spent 20 years building. I love that now I can use my 20 years of operations know how to help small businesses succeed.

Where to start when you are barely keeping up

For an owner who's just keeping the lights on, is there one quick operational fix that buys back the most time?

Honestly, there's rarely one fix that solves everything. It depends on what's going on in the business. But there's one thing I always start with: understanding exactly how you make money.

If you can't walk someone through, step by step and in real detail, how you bring in customers, deliver the work, and get paid, it's going to be really hard to fix anything else. That's the foundation everything else sits on.

Once that's clear, a quick practical win is to keep a tally for a week of the questions people keep bringing to you. Take the top five and write a short, plain answer for each one somewhere the team can find it. You'll get time back, and you'll see which parts of the business only live in your head.

What human centered AI actually means

You describe helping small businesses with human centered AI adoption. What does that mean in practice?

It means the people come first and the tools come second. A lot of AI advice for small businesses starts with "here's a cool tool, go use it." That's backwards. I start with what's actually eating the owner's time and what's frustrating the team, and only then look at whether a tool, AI or otherwise, makes that better.

In practice, that often means the first step isn't AI at all. It's getting a process written down so there's something worth automating.

The human part also means bringing the team along. If the people doing the work don't trust a new tool or don't understand why it's there, it'll quietly stop getting used within a month.

These days most of my work involves people who've recently bought an existing business. They inherit years of "this is how we've always done it," so the human side of technology changes matter even more.

The tool is not the fix

What's the biggest misconception small business owners have about adopting new tools or technology?

That the tool is the fix. Owners often think, "If I just get the right software, this problem will go away." But if the underlying process is broken, a new tool doesn't fix it. It just embeds the same problem in a new tool, and now you're paying a subscription for it.

The people side matters just as much as the technology. Sometimes the real issue is people doing the wrong tasks, people in the wrong roles, or people who don't fully understand the process they're part of. No tool solves that.

So I walk owners back a step. What's the actual problem? Who touches it? Is it a process issue, a people issue, or both? What does "fixed" look like? Once that's clear, choosing technology gets a lot easier. Sometimes the answer is that you don't need anything new at all.

Finding clients

How do you find your clients? What has worked and what hasn't?

Relationships, mostly. Business brokers, M&A advisors, lenders, and accountants see new owners right at the moment they need help, so I've spent a lot of time getting to know them. Earlier this year I sat down with about 50 brokers, advisors, and owners in a single quarter.

Podcast guest spots and speaking have been great too, because people get to hear how I think before we ever talk.

I'm also a member of my local BNI group. It helps me meet other business owners, but even more than that, it keeps me close to what's actually top of mind for small business owners across all kinds of industries. My BNI folks are a great sounding board. I get to really listen, get feedback, and learn what problems people are dealing with right now.

If I started over

If you started over, what's one thing you'd do differently?

I'd start building relationships and pipeline on day one, at the same time as building my program, instead of thinking I had to perfect the offer first.

It's very tempting, especially being as operationally minded as I am, to want everything polished before you show anyone. But the conversations with real owners are what actually shape the offer. I'd have gotten there faster by putting it in front of people sooner.

The hardest part

What was your hardest moment building Anchor & Keel, and how did you get through it?

Realizing I needed to build a whole new network. Over 20 years I built a really large network across nonprofits, international development, and tech, and those people are wonderful. But it's a very different network from the people who work with small businesses every day.

So I've been working on two things. The first is finding the connection points between the network I already have and the one I need to build. The second is putting as much time and energy as I can into building that new network, and not just with small business owners. It also means the people who support them: brokers, lenders, accountants, advisors, and other local business folks.

It's been humbling to start over in that way, but it's also been one of the most rewarding parts of this.